too many books
Perhaps I own too many books. I have five bookshelves overflowing with them. Tonight, I decided I don’t read enough fiction, and thought, hey, I want to re-read Lucy Corin’s Everyday Psychokillers, which I first read in a grad level creative writing class I took while teaching middle school. I couldn’t find it — and I should have been able to, because I’ve alphabetized my fiction according to author’s last name (yes, I’m that organized in some aspects of my life). My guess: I loaned it out at one point and someone didn’t return it, or it got lost in one of my moves, perhaps when I mailed books to myself when I moved to Oregon four years ago and one of the boxes was delivered but had obviously fallen apart and lost a few books. This makes me sad: Everyday Psychokillers was such a good book!
So I’m re-reading Joe Wenderoth’s Letters to Wendy’s instead, which is a weird weird book of this guy who fills out those “tell us about your visit” cards at Wendy’s. I barely read fiction anymore, except for the occasional graphic novel and Lance Olsen’s Girl Imagined by Chance, which is one of my favorite books ever. I’ve been slowly re-reading Dan Simmons’s Hyperion this summer, but I just can’t get into fantasy/science fiction like I used to.
Lesson: either get rid of lots of books (fat chance) or start to catalog my books so I know where they’re at.
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I’ve been reading short stories more and more frequently. There’s a lot of good sf in that genre, too. But, primarily I like that I can read one or two a night and not feel like I still have a book to finish.
Good idea, k8. Perhaps I should go more toward the short story stuff. At least I feel accomplished after a short story instead of stopping in the middle of a book.